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Positional Overview: It’ll be a couple of years (or the equivalent of 10 billion Rick Pitino orgasms) at least before we know how the Richard Seymour trade worked out. But one thing we do know for sure is that the trade created a significant void in the Pats defense last year. Just like with the OLB spot, defensive end in Belichick’s scheme requires a very specific set of skills. Skills that make them a nightmare for offenses. Belichick’s DE’s play a 4-technique, head up directly on the offensive tackle or shaded slightly to his outside shoulder. They have to take on the tackle, have the leverage to hold their ground against double teams from the either the guard or tight end, be strong enough control both the B and C gaps, and the size to be able to still read the play and the brains to know what to do. Any knucklehead can line up in a gap and shoot in. But guys with the skill set to play in the Pats’ system aren’t filling up Craigslist. In fact, the best guy for the job was Seymour himself and they guys they plugged into his RDE spot all year were a major drop off and it cost them. The first play from scrimmage in the Baltimore playoff game was a simple inside zone run. Jarvis Green broke his gap discipline and was three steps into the backfield when Ray Rice broke through the line and was off to what Stuart Scott and I like to call “the hizzy.” The rest of the line is obviously a strength of the team. Vince Wilfork is the best (and best paid) nose in the game, and appears to be stepping up to take on one of the Faces of the Franchise roles. Ty Warren is back for his 8th year of being The Guy They Got in the Bledsoe Trade (how’s that working out so far?). But the weak link remains on the right side. I assumed filling that spot was going to be their top priority in the draft but the only D-linemen they took were Brandon Deaderick and Kade Weston in the 7th round, which shows you how much I know. They did add 10 year veterans Gerard Warren and Damione Lewis, but how well/quickly they pick things up is anyone’s guess.

Definite Starters: Warren, Wilfork.

Emerging Folk Hero: Mike Wright. Wright plays well whenever and wherever they plug him in. An undersized, undrafted free agent, he’s taken on that versatile overachiever spot that Dan Klecko never did. But I’m not sure any of us is comfortable with the idea of him taking 50 snaps a game.

Most Likely to Be a Draft Bust: Ron Brace. I don’t anyone who liked the move when the Pats took Brace with the 40th overall pick last year. And in the little time he got, he pretty much displayed the surefootedness of a Bruins Ice Girl. Brace himself has said he needs to improve more on the mental side of the game than the physical. But if he doesn’t do both soon, he’ll be choosing the menu for Bethel Johnson, Adrian Klemm and Chad Jackson at the Patriots 2nd Round Busts Reunion dinner.

Another Carbon Blob They Plugged In Last Year to See If He Could Slow Somebody Down: Myron Pryor. The best thing you can say about him is he was better than Brace.

Most Likely to Start at the RDE Spot: Gerard Warren. Let the lame jokes about the WWW. line begin.

I want to thank everyone for this. Sincerely, it's an honor. I appreciate anyone having enough interest in what I've been trying to accomplish to create/ visit a thread with my name on the top. And of course I want to thank PFL in particular who's been as supportive as anyone.

It's been hard because I've got a day job, and things have been a little insane there so I'm trying to keep up with blogging, Twittering, doing stuff for WEEI and it's left very little time to be on the Planet. But I truly appreciate the fact that any of you guys take the time to pay attention to my nonsense. It feels a lot like that time a couple of years ago when I started getting emails and phone calls from Dan Pires, God rest his soul. Like maybe I've got a chance to put a dent in the Boston sports media market. I'll keep plugging.

And for what it's worth, I'll be Tweeting @jerrythornton1 from the afternoon session today (Saturday) starting at 3:45. The way I look at it, since the legitimate media isn't allowed to do so, the only live updates coming out of camp will be from the illegitimate sources, and that's me in a nutshell. It'll be just like Iran last year.

But again, thanks a million. Really. You guys are unbelievable.

__________________
"Why must you be such a clown, Lawrence?"
"Because we all can't be lion tamers."-Lawrence of Arabia

Positional Overview: One of the oldest, tried & true, Football 101 axioms is that the key to a good offensive line is continuity. Five guys, all thinking with one mind, working together, oars in the same boat pulling in the same direction, blahbitty blah. And the Patriots for the most part have achieved it. They’ve had the same starting five for four years now. Dante Scarnecchia has been coaching them since we were all still waiting for Alyssa Milano to hit the age of consent.

But for the first time in a while we’re looking at a potential major change along the line caused by Logan Mankins’ holdout. While the Pats have always put a major emphasis on finding backup O-linemen who can fill in at different spots, they’re trying something more drastic by moving Nick Kaczur from RT to LG to plug the hole left by Mankins. Don’t kid yourself; this isn’t like moving Jacoby Ellsbury from centerfield to left. This is a big deal. I can’t pretend to know the intricacies of the Pats blocking scheme, but in general the reads a tackle has to make are much more simple than a guy on the inside. Most line play involves some variation of the OIL system. You block the guy “on” you first. If there’s no one on you, you block the man to your “inside.” If there’s no one there, you’ve got the linebacker. So generally speaking, a tackle ends up taking on the outside man, regardless of what kind of defense your facing or whether it’s run or pass.

But once you get to the guards and center, the reads get more complicated. The principles of Big on Big (“BoB”) blocking call for five linemen to take on five potential rushers, with help from the backs if the defense sends extra bodies. And with the tackles taking the outside man, the three interior guys have to sort out the middle of the defensive front. Between them they’re responsible for taking on the two tackles and middle linebacker in a 4-3 or the nose and two backers in a 3-4. That means knowing who the Mike LB is, reading blitzes, knowing you and the guys next to you are going to do, and basically processing dozens of reads before the ball is even snapped. Mankins was/ is brilliant at it. He’s also a nasty, tough, feral maniac who hasn’t missed a game due to injury and he’s exactly the kind of guy you want anchoring your line. If Kaczur can step in and play anywhere near Mankins’ level until this situation is resolved, I’ll take back all the wiseassy things I said about him during that whole undercover Oxycontin bust a couple of years back.

Guy We’re All Most Interested in Watching Again: Vollmer. Seabass had one of the great rookie seasons of anybody at any position in the Belichick Era. He played both tackle spots and was a rock. He’s strong enough to dwarf toss the likes of Dwight Freeney and has the technique, moves and footwork to make Bruno Tonioli masturbate furiously under the desk.

(pause to wipe the tears away from laughing at the DWTS Bruno reference)

Quote:

Most Likely to Miss Time With Injuries: Neal. That’s not a knock. I’m not calling him JD Drew in shoulder pads. I love Neal. But he’s missed 22 games in the last four seasons. Just sayin’.

The Russ Hochstein Most Versatile Backup Award Winner: Dan Connolly. He’s the first off the bench at both the center and guard spots and started four games last year in place of Neal.

Project I’d Like to See More Of: Rich Ohrnberger. He’s another intriguing guy they’ve slotted to back up all along the interior but he barely played last year.
Massive Tackles Who Might Contribute and at Least Are Interesting Prospects: Mark LeVoir and Thomas Welch. LeVoir came off the PUP list last year and got some snaps, a lot of them as a 3rd TE. Welch came out of Vanderbilt in the 7th round and might fight for a spot on the practice squad. Both are 6-7 so they’ll be hard to miss.

Highly unlikely LeVoir will be stuck in as a TE with Gronk around.

[quote]Guy Who Most Needs to Be Reasonable, Realize He Has No Leverage and Take the Top 4 Money He Was Offered and End This Mess: Mankins.

What is the media's beef with the Patriots? Tue, 08/03/2010 - 11:17pm
By Jerry Thornton

”All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

“Brought peace?”

”Oh, peace! Pfft… SHUT UP!!!”

-Monty Python’s Life of Brian

I’ll begin with a hypothetical. Let’s say there’s a restaurant in your neighborhood that was never really very good. And at times it was awful. As in “How are they still in business?” and “Why hasn’t the Board of Health shut them down yet?” caliber awful. So bad in fact, at one point the place was rumored to be shutting down and moving operations out of state. And frankly not too many people were shedding a tear over it because the whole block they were on was a blight upon the neighborhood.

Now let’s say one loyal customer decides, over his wife’s objections, to buy the place. He even pledges to turn it into a five star restaurant and is summarily laughed at coast-to-coast. Early on things look dicey. He gets into a fight with his award-winning chef over who should pick out the groceries and the guy quits on him. So the owner brings in another chef who is in over his head and gets fired after three bad years.

So the owner brings in an old assistant chef to run the place. And soon this new guy turns the place around. He’s such a success he’s being compared to the all time great chefs like Escoffier or Boyardee. And suddenly that little failed restaurant is in the Michelin Guide as one of the greatest dining experiences ever. Soon the owner is doing well enough that he tears down the old place and puts up his own money to build a new, state-of-the-art restaurant in its place. And then, in the middle of a crippling recession, let’s say he gets all sorts of retail shops to move into the block from hotels and bars to places to buy shower curtains and places to buy hunting rifles and puts hundreds of people to work in the process.

You’d think that a man like that and the restaurant he owns would get a pretty good treatment in the press. That he’d be hailed as a visionary. A bold leader in the community. An unquestionable success story and someone to be admired.

You’d think that, and you’d be right in any other instance. But with respect to this metaphor, change the restaurant to the Patriots, the owner to Robert Kraft, the chef to Bill Belichick and the press to the miserable, angry, bitter, grudge-holding, misanthropic troglodytes who make up the Boston football media, and what you get is exactly the opposite..... (continued)

Positional Overview: OK, now we’re talking. Now we’re playing for keeps. There’s intrigue and story lines everywhere for this year’s Pats. But if all the positions were summer blockbusters, the receiving corps would be “Inception.” It’s got originality, interesting plots, big stars, interesting newcomers and we could end up seeing things we’ve never seen before.

The other day uber-Stoolie Soog asked me if I thought the problem with the Pats offense last year was that Brady’s favorite receiver stopped being “who’s ever open” and he instead started forcing the ball to Welker and Moss. And I told him I think he’s half right. That Brady started forcing the ball into Welker and Moss because they were the only ones who were open. The Pats tried to run the same spread attack they’d run in 2007, the problem was that splitting four guys out wide doesn’t work when only two of them have the QB’s confidence.

The Titanic-sized disaster that was Joey Galloway put the team in a hole they could never really dig out of. All they needed him to do was give them that Donte Stallworth presence on the outside. That deep threat who could maybe catch 40 balls but draw safety help and take pressure off of Moss. And he couldn’t even make it to Halloween before they left him at the dog track with a note pinned to his overcoat. They tried Sam Aiken in that same role and while he more or less knew where he was supposed to be on a given play, he also demonstrated he’s got the hands of a career special teamer, which is what he is. Ben Watson was what we thought he was: a guy who’ll make an impossible, web gem play, then revert back to his pizza paddle hands on a ball that hits him in the sternum, which is why the Pats didn’t even extend him a contract offer. Behind them, Julian Edelman was a revelation in limited playing time, and no one else did anything of note.

So the Pats are left to rebuild their receiving corps from the Welker/ Moss/ Edelman up. And it’s impossible to project who’ll be able to hack it and who won’t. The Pats’ passing scheme is a fingerpainty blend of the Air Coryell passing tree based on the deep route mixed with the West Coast emphasis on slants. According to a great piece last fall in ESPN the Mag, it has as many as 8 options on any given route with 8 options off each of those options. Brady sure as hell knows where you’re supposed to be, and if you can’t figure it out (helloooo, Galloway, Chad Jackson and Doug Gabriel. And goodbye! ) all the physical tools in the world won’t make you worth keeping around.

So which of the guys they’ve got in camp will be able to figure out the Pats’ spread offense is a matter of pure conjecture at this point. Add to the intrigue Welker’s health and the the receiving corps is THE best story on the team this year by far.

The Tight Ends: In the Belichick Epoch, the Pats have invested a lot in the TE spot, and for the most part they’ve turned out to be a lot of Enron shares. But still it’s hard not to be excited by the prospects of Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. Gronk is your classic old school TE prototype. Big, powerful, quick, agile and hopefully a little nuts. They drafted Hernandez to take on that F-receiver role Coryell invented for Kellen Winslow, Sr. and more recently has superstars out of Dallas Clark and Antonio Gates. A guy you can split out wide, put in motion or run out of the H-back spot who can create coverage mismatches. If he pans out like they hope, Hernandez may have smoked the greatest bone in the history of the world.

Definite Starters at Wideout: Moss and Welker (whenever he’s ready.) Duh. And until Welker is ready, Edelman, who led the team in participation in the offseason program. I went to the afternoon session on Saturday, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that apart from his number, Edelman on the field is indistinguishable from Welker in every way. And if he’s 75% of Welker in games, then he could be the best non-Brady value pick in the Belichick era.

Most Likely 3rd WR: Brandon Tate. The book on Tate is that he would have been a 1st rounder if he hadn’t gotten injured his senior year. It’s inconclusive, but I did see him dismantle a couple of corners in passing drills the other day. Who knows?

Most Intriguing Rookie: Taylor Price. Again, who can say? But all the reports out of rookie camps were that he’s a heady, cerebral kid who seems to have a grasp on the offense. At least he made a mark for himself by carrying Moss’ pads when asked. If Price can have one more catch than Dez Bryant this year, then it will give hope to all mankind.

Guy Who Seems to Be Doing Things the Gallo-way: Torry Holt. I don’t want to harsh anyone’s mellow, but the early word out of practices is not good.

Camp Sleeper: Darnell Jenkins. The undrafted free agent out of Miami has looked like he belongs. And with Patrick Chung taking Aiken’s spot as the gunner on teams, Jenkins might even hook on at the bottom of the depth chart.

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